Samuel Evans is a Postdoctoral Fellow jointly with the Program on Science, Technology, & Society (STS) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. He received his D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he was supervised by Prof. Steve Rayner. His thesis concerns the process through which governments negotiate an international list of “dual-use” technologies to control in international trade because of their perceived military significance. This process, he argues, is a dynamic interplay between at least two very different preferences for social organisation, which leads to different understandings of what constitutes relevant characteristics of technologies. This work develops on several strands within STS, including work on ambiguity, ambivalence, affordances, and boundary/classification studies. It also pulls on the theory of sociocultural viability (also known as Cultural Theory) to draw links between the ways we organise technology versus the ways we organise society.

At Harvard, Sam is preparing journal articles and a book draft based on his doctoral research. He is also helping to design and teach an undergraduate course with Venky Narayanamurti on “Technology & Society”, to be taught in the Spring of 2010.

Sam also holds a Masters in Management Research from Oxford University, and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy & Physics from St. Olaf College, MN. More information about Sam is available on his website: http://samuelevansresearch.org.

Publications and Presentations

“Technological Ambiguity & the Wassenaar Arrangement,” DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, submitted Trinity Term 2009.

“How do we prevent the malicious use of technology? Can we?” Presentation at the New College Graduate Colloquium, University of Oxford, 22 October 2008.

“Is it possible to define technologies to be controlled?” Talk given to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, California, 26 August 2008.

“Governing trade in dual-use items: the problem of definition,” Paper prepared for the 2008 Oxford/Sciences-Po Doctoral Seminar on Regional and Global Institutions in the 21st Century, 1 May 2008.